


Just a Girl

by rael_ellan



Category: Maleficent (2014)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-27
Updated: 2015-05-27
Packaged: 2018-04-01 14:15:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4022932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rael_ellan/pseuds/rael_ellan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once, she reflected, she wouldn’t have asked. Once, in fact, she wouldn’t have cared, so long as it didn’t affect his flight or his ability to stick his beak into castle life. Once, of course, had been and gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just a Girl

For the past seventeen years, winter in the Moors had been a grim affair. Maleficent had stalked the borders of her world regardless of rain or hail, sleet, snow, lightning or balmy day, strengthening her defences. For seventeen years, she had been at war, and had brought the Fey folk down with her. 

Things would be different this year. 

In the last few months, despite her gentle disposition, Aurora had proved time and again that she loved the Moors as much as her own human world, and had swiped aside any proposal of invasion. Her counsel, Maleficent felt sure, would not be so easily pacified forever. High in her ruined tower – reached now on the wing instead of on foot. She didn’t miss the climb up the twisting staircases – she turned away from the human castle. Something would be done about them eventually. For now, they were too busy rebuilding to push too hard against the Moors. 

Diaval landed on the battlements behind her and cawed insistently. She rolled her eyes, but acquiesced. 

“You’re back early.”

“Aurora’s meeting with Philip’s father, King Hubert. They had a good farming year, apparently, and would be happy to trade.”

She hummed. 

“And have the council agreed? I thought their advice was to avoid any form of charit – “

She turned to face him and couldn’t quite stop herself from flinching. His shirt – blown about as it was by the headwinds when he flew in feathered form – hardly ever sat quite right, and now it hung open just enough to expose a sickly bruise along his collarbone, already starting to purple. 

He followed her gaze and shifted uncomfortably, tugging the shirt up to cover the bruise. It dropped back down again almost instantly.

“Oh, don’t worry about that. Just a little thing.”

The ‘little thing’, as he called it, was aching. She could feel it drifting in the tendrils of her magic.

“Did you fly into a tree?”

“Oh. I, um. No.”

She raised an eyebrow and waited. He cringed. 

“Well, you see... I, um. I...” he gathered himself, “I had a fight with one of the Council Lords.”

Now that _was_ a surprise. She had expected another run in with the palace cat, or a one-sided fight with a broom handle.

“You had a fight.”

“Yes.”

“With one of Aurora’s advisors?”

“Um. Yes.”

“While you were a raven and several times smaller than he?”

This time he winced. 

“I didn’t say it was my best idea.”

Once, she reflected, she wouldn’t have asked. Once, in fact, she wouldn’t have cared, so long as it didn’t affect his flight or his ability to stick his beak into castle life. Once, of course, had been and gone.

“Care to tell me what happened?”

“Well...” 

Staring at his feet, he smiled and bent to pick something up. Something brown, large. _A leaf, perhaps?_ He ran it through his fingers as he spoke. 

“They had a disagreement first. Aurora and Lord Kingsley, that is. They were talking about the distribution of food. She wants it spread equally, rich and poor alike. He says that’s not how it’s done.”

No, she realised, startled. A feather. One of my feathers.

“So, she tells him that if he doesn’t like the way she does things, he can just take himself off and find another kingdom. You can imagine how he took that.”

_Served him right._ He was twirling the feather, now.

“Anyway, he goes all red in the face and sits back down, doesn’t say another word for the rest of the meeting. But when Aurora dismisses them all, he stays right where he is and holds a couple of other fellows back with him, so I think to myself that I might stick around a bit, too. Somewhere he can’t see me, that is. So, I’m up in the rafters and he’s talking about how he’s served three monarchs now and he’s sure, he says – clear as anything – that Aurora’s not fit to run things. Never mind that she’s a princess and fair and honest and everybody loves her, no, none of that matters because she’s ‘just a girl’ and ‘could be easily swayed by outside influence’, whatever that means. And they’re _all_ like that, the Old Guard. Praising her to her face and bowing and scraping their noses on the floor...”

The biting wind and the indignant hum of Diaval’s story faded away around her as the memory rose up, balmy and bitter in her mind’s eye. She hadn’t been back to the Pool of Jewels since she had raised the wall of thorns. It must, she thought, be one of the few places on the Moors that she hadn’t walked with Aurora, though the girl had, doubtless, found it herself by now. She disappeared off, exploring, as often as she pestered her godmother when she had the time to visit, accompanied by the ever watchful Balthazar. 

_Just a girl._

In her mind, there were two different Stefans. The one she saw now, slowly offering her his hand to shake, was always smiling. Barely a boy himself, he had been full of curiosity and optimism. Slowly, over the years, he had been devoured by the older Stefan, his wide eyes still bulging out at her as he fell away from her outstretched wings.

“Maleficent?”

“What?”

Diaval folded his arms. 

“You weren’t even listening to me, were you?”

“Of course I was.”

“Oh, really? Then what was I saying?”

“Don’t be childish, Diaval.”

She didn’t have to look at him to see the petulant expression on his face. He hated when she didn’t listen to him. 

“I need to see Aurora.”

“Oh, and I suppose you want me to fetch her?” He slumped down against one of the few remaining columns, stretching his legs out in front of him and muttering, pointedly. “’Fly here, Diaval’, ‘go there, Diaval’, ‘learn about human money and matters and affairs so you can help Aurora, Diaval-‘”

Even after seventeen years, the tug of her magic could still silence him. It flickered over his skin, briefly, settling over the bruise on his chest and sinking down. If she concentrated just hard enough, she could trace along his bones. 

“Better?”

“It doesn’t hurt anymore, if that’s what you mean.”

“Good. Ask Aurora to join me when she can. If she’s not too tired by her exciting day at the beck and call of that band of fools, I have something I’d like to discuss with her.”   
He waited a moment, rearranging words in his mind.

“And how exactly am I supposed to convey all that to her with a beak and talons?”

_Ah._

“Tug at her dress and point towards the Moor. Write in the sand, if you will. I’m sure you’ll find a way.”

Usually, that kind of praise – not that she’d admit it was praise – was enough to warm his demeanour again. Subtle enough that she felt she could say it, but just obvious enough, that was the trick. She glanced back at him.

He wasn’t smiling, but he wasn’t scowling anymore, either. He was staring at the feather, still in his hand. 

He stood.

“Alright.”

_Is that it?_

“I’m ready, go ahead.” 

If she were here already, Maleficent thought, Aurora would know exactly the right words to quell his resentment.

She twitched her fingers and watched as he sped away from her, a black shape disappearing into the evening sky. 

Her own wings twitched and she sighed, heavily. _Fool. He didn’t have to stay with me._

She would have to find some way to make up for insulting him. Later. Much later. The wind was picking up again and she spread her wings to catch it, revelling in the cool ripples between her feathers. 

_Short one_ , she thought, suddenly, smiling despite herself. Diaval had taken it with him.

**Author's Note:**

> Found this on my harddrive and thought I'd finally post it. Hopefully, it'll grow into a series as I recover my muse. For now, I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> (And if you have an opinion on the voices in this story, I'd be happy to hear them. I'm never entirely sure I've got them right.)


End file.
